The present invention relates to toy railways and in particular to a toy cog railway.
Cog railways are used on steep slopes where static friction alone may not be sufficient to overcome gravity. Toy cog railways have heretofore been constructed as small scale versions of actual cog railways. Accordingly, the track for the railway has been provided with a center rack between two rails. The associated train includes a cog wheel that is driven by an electromotor of the train engine to engage the rack. Actual cog railways may employ one of several systems (e.g. Riggenbach, Abt, Strub, and Locher) although toy cog railways usually employ the Strub system which utilizes upper open cogs since this simplifies the manufacture of the rack as well as the engine.
In order to make toy cog railways realistic heretofore the manufacturing costs were relatively high and the products were not particularly robust. As a result such toys were not particularly well suited for young children who lack technical understanding of the toy but wish to operate the model railway over tight turns and steep slopes.
Model cog railways heretofore available also suffer from a shortcoming of actual cog railways in that the maximum steepness of the track slope is relatively small particularly on tight turns. In addition, only by providing a relatively heavy engine and a relatively light trailer load can the engine be prevented from "lifting" off the rack. Further, model cog railway's can only be used to a very limited extent for "pushing" since the pushed cars tend to leave the track particularly on steep slopes and tight turns.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,547,710 there is disclosed a toy comprising a vehicle in the form of an imaginary animal figure designed to travel on a horizontal, substantially smooth track mounted on a support. The track is in the form of an approximate oval formed of two parallel side sections and curved end sections. The track has a vertical cogging rack throughout its entire length on its inner edge which is engaged by a battery driven cogwheel. The vehicle moves in one direction along the straight sections of track and reverses direction in the curved end section. The vehicle is guided along the track by a shoe that rides in a recess of the track between the rack and outer track edge.
A toy that operates with a somewhat similar movement is also disclosed in French patent 517,106. This toy is also provided with a closed approximately oval track with a vertically extending rack on the track inner face. A vehicle that moves along the track is provided with a drive motor and a drive cog that engages the rack and which is so constructed that that as it moves it also rotates two airplane models mounted on two cantilevers.
In contrast two the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide an model cog railway which is a realistic model of actual cog railways.
A further object is to provide such an model cog railway wherein the track may readily and easily be laid out in any desired shape without any particular skill or expertise.
A still further object is to provide such an model cog railway which can operate in both pushing and pulling modes.